


αίνιγμα | aínigma

by mayor_crumblepot



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Happy Ending, Human Oswald, M/M, Prompt Fill, canon adjacent, divine creature ed, i have no idea how to tag it to be completely transparent with you, this also includes some post arkham fluffwald, this fic is a clusterfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-23 23:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14343207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayor_crumblepot/pseuds/mayor_crumblepot
Summary: ed was once a divine consort to hermes, and now works casually under hades. when he's supposed to bring difficulty and incident into the life of oswald, a man who continues to cheat death, he accidentally gets attached. very, very attached.it's prompt fill from tumblr that got way out of hand and barely resembles the prompt anymore. major liberties were taken with the concept of gods/goddesses/and greek mythology as a whole.[runs along the timeline of 2x9, 2x10, 2x15, and 2x16]





	αίνιγμα | aínigma

**Author's Note:**

> **αίνιγμα | aínigma**  
>  meaning _riddle_
> 
>  **κακοδαίμων | kakodaímōn**  
>  meaning _malevolent spirit / demon_
> 
>  **ἀγαθοδαίμων | agathodaímōn**  
>  meaning _noble spirit / guardian angel_

At the time of his death, Ed has a library that dwarfs that of the surrounding cities. Anyone within a distance reasonably travelled comes to see the books he's collected, the various volumes and different bindings. People come to him with questions, with desperate pleading queries, and he has answers. (Note, he rarely has solutions, but he has answers.) 

He's known, to everyone around him, for his way with words. When he isn't showing off and answering questions, he's sitting with an audience, mostly children, watching him with rapt attention. Like spiderwebs, he spins words together and turns them on them on their heads;  _what is heavy forward, but backwards it is not?_ Ed prefers the audience of children, they understand his ways better— sometimes things are entirely literal, and sometimes it's all about the wonderment of it.

When he dies, Ed is also only a child, barely over twenty-five but taken by whatever mysterious ailment that doctors don't yet have the means to understand. He passes in the night, a book still tented open on his chest. 

People leave him on the floor of their temple to Hermes, crumpled and wrapped in sheets, as if the layers will warm him and bring him back to life, as if it might return the color to his skin. It's the middle of the night, cold wind cutting through the open temple, whipping sheets and curtains around. 

Maybe Hermes will take him, maybe he'll see what they did in him, his intelligence and his wit— they pray, because that's all they can do, and they leave him there. They leave him there, wrapped up in sheets with one of his books tucked up against his fading skin.

When Hermes comes, prepared to conduct Ed's soul with the morning light, he's met with a soul that wants to debate with him.

"I was never sure you were real," Ed says, clutching his sheets up to his spectral body. 

"And now you know me to be," Hermes is impatient, offering his hand up, "we have a ways to go." 

"Now, wait a minute. I have so many questions," he finds the book the people left him with, fondly picks it up before going to follow Hermes, "surely you can answer them."

"If I feel so inclined." 

"What can you hold in your right hand, but never your left?" As they walk away, Ed looks back at his body, now truly empty and graying with the cold. The muscles on his face have frozen in an expression that's very similar to sadness, and he can't help but wonder why that is. 

"Word games," the god says, little wings on his cap fluttering. "You do understand that you can't stump me, don't you? I have an approximate knowledge of all things."

"I can try, can't I?"

"Fair," Hermes looks at his hands, considering Ed's question, "your left hand."

"Very good!" And with time, as they walk on toward the afterlife, Ed wears on Hermes. He has plenty of riddles, and even more philosophical questions that Hermes can't help but answer. 

"Come with me to Olympus as my consort," Hermes offers, although it isn't much of a question, "Calliope will enjoy your company, I'm sure."

Ed can't turn down such an offer, especially when he thinks about the uncertainty of the afterlife, as opposed to the information he's been fed about the gods and goddesses, up on Mount Olympus. "Surely," he starts, despite already following Hermes in another direction, "there will be books, won't there?"

"As many as you want there to be, Edward."

When they arrive on Olympus, when Hermes presents Ed to the muses as an offering of entertainment and companionship, Hermes presents a name for him very different from his own. "This is Ed, my αίνιγμα," he says.

"αίνιγμα?" Calliope looks up from her notebook, bringing her pen to her lips, "That's a new one, isn't it?"

"Brand new," Hermes confirms, gesturing for someone to dress Ed properly, "special for him.

 

Time passes differently on Olympus, and it takes quite some time for Ed to settle into the routine of it. What feels like days to him are centuries to the people below, the humans; and is he still human? What does this make him?

The people he once knew were long dead by the time he settled in, their great-grandchildren nearing the end of their lives by the time he goes to sleep. By the next day, he's entirely free of every single person who ever knew him; he is forgotten to the world he came from, and ultimately, he feels at peace with that. It's for the best. 

Sometimes, he accompanies Hermes on his travels, following behind him like a puppy. He's a source of companionship, a source of sound where there normally isn't any— his chatter comforts restless souls as Hermes takes them to the afterlife, and sometimes it shows their true colors and makes Hermes' job that much easier. 

 

"αίνιγμα," Calliope says to him, one day, as he sits with books in his lap, a pen in hand, "come here."

"Can't it wait?" He holds up the cover of the book he's reading, showing Calliope that it is, indeed, one of her own works, "I'm getting to the good part."

"I'll spoil the ending—" and he's at her side, chewing on his pen, "Hermes says you're skilled with word games."

"I'll have you know," Ed boasts, bringing his knees up to his chest so that he can rest his head on them comfortably, "I nearly stumped him, a few times."

"Hermes may be knowledgeable, but comprehension is not his strength," a few of the other muses laugh, draped over their own lounge chairs. "I want to hear one. Would you please, dear?"

"Many have heard me, but no one has seen me. I will not speak back until spoken to. What am I?" Ed rocks back and forth, pleased with getting to put one of his newer riddles to the test— very few individuals on Olympus want to hear them. While Calliope thinks, Ed watches her draw the words out of the sky, hold them in the palm of her hand and spin them together; like patchwork, the words slot together and she touches them with reverence, like a mother to a child. 

"An echo," she says, the words disappearing. Ed is speechless. "I am not the muse of eloquence for nothing, dearest αίνιγμα. That was vey good, very beautiful."

"Thank you." 

 

Unknowingly, Calliope introduces Ed to his downfall through Dionysus. As if having Hermes' personal consort meet with the god of  _ritual madness_ was a good idea to begin with. 

Dionysus brings Ed to his events, shows him off in glittering robes and demands a room's attention for each and every one of his riddles. Muse Thalia joins him, making a show out of his skin— they start to gamble. Money, goods, servitude; those who are not gods struggle to parse Ed's riddles, and those that do are taken away by Dionysus before they can make good on what they were offered. 

Drunkenly, Ed seats himself on Dionysus' knee, mirroring Thalia. Human or not, he still isn't sure, but alcohol still easily incapacitates him, leaving him dizzy and even more incapable of seeing clearly. 

"αίνιγμα, I'd like to make a deal with you," Dionysus says, and Thalia is already subtly shaking her head, "a wager." Ed hums, the only real indication that he is awake, or that he can hear what the god is saying. "If I can solve your finest riddle, you become my consort. I'm sure I can soothe Hermes' hurt feelings that you prefer me."

"My finest riddle?" Ed asks, surprisingly small against Dionysus' chest.

"Your finest riddle. If I can solve it, that means I'm worthy to have you as mine," his smile doesn't quite feel trustworthy, but maybe that's just the wine impairing his judgement. "That sounds fair, doesn't it?"

Thalia is shaking her head more visibly now, and while Ed sees her, he can never step down from a challenge of his wit. An opportunity is before him, a chance to outwit a god, to place himself among the ranks as a force to be reckoned with. "I am the first on earth, the second in heaven," Ed speaks carefully, the drink making his tongue feel thick in his mouth. "I appear twice in a week, though you can only see me once in a year," he slides off of Dionysus' lap, fixes his robes and takes pose against a column, "what am I?" 

Surprisingly, Ed keeps his mouth shut for a long time, waiting for Dionysus to say something,  _anything_. The god fumes, rage boils behind his eyes and Ed swears he feels fire on his skin. 

"I'm getting Hermes," Thalia says, skittering away before she can catch the wrath that's sure to come. 

"Do you give up?" Ed asks, head held high, "Or should I go back to Hermes myself?"

"You aren't going anywhere," the hand on his wrist is gigantic, hulking as Dionysus tries to bring Ed back in, only succeeding in pulling him halfway; Ed holds his ground, heels digging into the cloud beneath him.

"We had a deal, Dionysus," he reminds.

"It's witchcraft," the god says, uncouth and unhinged, "trickery. Calliope taught you how to do it, didn't she? You're a  _cheat_."

"I don't cheat!" Ed rips his arm from Dionysus' grip, stomping his feet on the ground like a child, "I am  _not_ a cheat! You take that back, you take it back right now! You— you  _brute!_ " If words are Ed's strength, his shield in the face of danger, his pride is the knife in his back, the bullet in his stomach, the blood bubbling up in his throat and suffocating him. He pushes Dionysus away, ignores the sound of the others around him calling him back. "Just because you aren't smart enough— you can't call me a cheat! Because you're  _stupid_ —"

The ground breaks beneath him, cloud turned to stone turned to rubble, and there's nothing but blue. Blue, blue, blue, and his books falling into the void after him. 

 

Persephone finds him, robes torn ad book pages singed, inches short of one of her flowerbeds. "I didn't grow you," she remarks, crouching down to be on eye-level with him, "where did you come from?" Ed points upward, then uses the tears in his eyes to help scrub the dirt from his face. "I'm sorry," and she means it. She reaches into her basket of flowers and tucks a marigold behind his ear, "I think my husband can help you. What did they call you?"

"αίνιγμα," the name feels harsh on Ed's tongue.

"And what did your parents call you, when you were born?"

"Edward."

"We'll keep that between us," she says, whispering his name into her basket of flowers. "Hades will be more fond of αίνιγμα."

From what Ed knows of Hades, he is supposed to be brutish and impossible to reason with. A man defined by his anger and his hatred, a vicious lover to his queen, the woman he stole from her life of peace and beauty. Cerberus is supposed to be larger than any man, god, or titan; one drop of slobber enough to drown several men. 

"He needs help," Persephone tells Hades, reaching down to pet the rather average sized guard dog at the god's feet, "and I want you to help him."

"I can't do much," he admits, gesturing for Ed to come close to him, "αίνιγμα? Who gave you that?"

"Hermes," it feels dangerous to even say, making Ed's throat go tight. He had trusted Hermes, he's trusted all of them; the muses, the other gods. What a fool. "He made it for me."

"And who cast you out?" Hades gestures for someone to hold Ed's books for him, his entire body swaying frailly.

"Dionysus."

Persephone scoffs and rolls her eyes, "He's always doing that. His temper..." 

"What happened, αίνιγμα? At Olympus?" Hades knows, because at any given time he can hear the rumblings of the gods, their petty arguments and their raging parties. He knows, but he wants to hear it from the man in front of him.

"We hurt without moving. We poison without touching." Ed grips his robes, focuses closely on the sensation of dirt beneath his fingertips, "We bear the truth and the lies, and are not to be judged by our size. What are we?"

"Words," Persephone says, voice like a gust of wind through leaves. 

"And yours are weapons," Hades gestures toward Ed, beckons him in. "You were persecuted for your wit. I can give you a chance to use it to your advantage." When he sees the light in Ed's eyes, he quickly stomps it out, "But it comes with a cost, as most things do. You will be with us into perpetuity."

"I have nothing left to lose." There's a searing pain, violent and harsh, cutting through Ed from the joint of his right hip. When he peels his layers away, searching for the source of the pain, he finds the word κακοδαίμων carved into his skin. It isn't too big, not enough to make his life any harder than it already is, but it will definitely keep him from looking  _normal._

"It's protocol," Hades explains.

 

Being a κακοδαίμων is far nicer than Ed expected it to be. He was brought up on the concept of demons, but they were always described to him as direct slaves to the powers that be— not as free spirited vessels of mischief. 

Ed walks the earth's surface, dressed up in whatever he can conjure up or or steal. Hades has given him a pair of glasses, the perfect amendment to his notoriously bad eyesight, and he  _adores_ them; he styles his whole persona around the glasses. It's nice to be able to see and be seen again. It's also nice to be able to disappear at a moment's notice, to be able to summon a curse of locusts on an enemy's home, to render people motionless until they can solve his riddles. 

Occasionally, when he's feeling particularly bored, Ed will come to Hades with a request for entertainment. Hades will pull files out of a desk, each labelled with the names of people who have, somehow, cheated death. The fates have cut their threads, taken shears to the fragile weave, only to see it hang on, held by even the thinnest strand— they have to wait, after that. Try again later. They don't  _like_ to try again. 

The first is a Russian man, one who somehow avoids death by both poison and gunshot; Ed drags him further and further underwater until he freezes. 

The second time, Ed follows a woman through six different suicide attempts, having to swap bottles around to get her to finally ingest the proper amount of poison. 

After that, Ed starts to forget the people he helps kill. He remembers how powerful it makes him feel, remembers the rush he gets the second before the life leaves their eyes— then again, Ed doesn't have to work to get this same rush. Sometimes, he can't help himself. 

If the fates mind his additional deliveries, they don't say so. 

 

In one of his off periods, perched up in a loft apartment in some decrepit city, Ed finds himself with Cerberus, three-headed pomeranian, seated on his couch with a file spat at its feet. The creature yaps util Ed pays attention to it, scratching between every set of ears before taking the file. 

 

_Oswald Cobblepot / The Penguin_

_First Generation Hungarian American._

_Gangster. Snitch. Violent._

_Recently lost his mother._

_First attempt: One year ago— dumped into the bay, mid-winter, with a broken leg. emerged on the other side a day later, alive._

_Second attempt: Four days ago— shotgun wound to the shoulder. violent infection. depression. despite this, bouncing back, slowly but surely._

_No available allies._

_Currently hiding in a trailer in the Southeast quadrant of Burns Forest._

_Is not quick to trust. Will be difficult, rude, and impolite._

 

At the bottom of the page, beneath Hades' sprawling signature, Persephone has scribbled a smiling face and a sweet note; "good luck, αίνιγμα!" Ed rips the well-wishes off of the paper, putting the scrap on his desk and giving the file back to Cerberus to take with it on its way out. 

Hades has set Ed up with a career, a way to corroborate his existence for the sake of his work. Edward Nygma, forensic scientist at the Gotham City Police Department; disliked by most coworkers. There are keys to a vintage car on the kitchen counter, and Ed wastes no time getting dressed and packing himself up into it. Sometimes, Hades spoils him. 

 

One thing Ed  _can't_  do, despite his still somewhat newfound powerful strengths, is make roads appear where they don't currently exist. He drives his car up to the opening of Burns Forest, but he has to make the trek into the Southeast quadrant from the farthest possible side. Perhaps he could turn himself into mist, follow the wind, but it feels like cheating. He doesn't cheat, he likes a fair fight. 

When he does finally find the trailer in question, the door comes swinging open hard enough to knock Ed off of his feet. His glasses go flying, his back coming into contact with dirt so roughly that the air gets knocked out of him. The man who comes tumbling out looks nothing like the hardened description made him seem— this man is all soft edges, Victorian flair, and frail as can be. "Help me," he begs, dropping a shotgun and hitting the ground shortly after.

Oh, he smells. Smells like mothballs and infection, like he's doused himself in an old woman's perfume, some time ago. At least he's small. That makes it easy for Ed to carry him, hauled up into his arms like a bride, and place him in the front seat of his car. Getting him upstairs into his loft is significantly harder, simply hoping that nobody will come into the elevator while he's carrying a man who looks, quite literally, like he cheated death, but only barely. 

Once Oswald is in his bed, Ed gets to work on cleaning him up.  _Gain his trust_. Saving his life sure sounds like the perfect way to do that. Ed pulls shrapnel out of Oswald's shoulder, stitches up skin and blots out infection with alcohol as best he can. This is going to be a long endeavor.

Oswald's clothes  _have_ to go. Ed struggles to dress him, pulling pajamas over Oswald's small frame, giving up on buttoning the shirt after the first five. He'll just have to undo it all to change the bandages anyway.

 

"I'm going to need you to not panic," Ed tells him, standing bedside and looking down at Oswald as he wakes up, "your initial instinct will be to panic. Don't."

"Where am I—"

"Rapid movement and elevated heart rate; you're panicking. I told you not to," he pulls a syringe out from the makeshift nurse's table he has set up, "that's counterproductive to the healing process."

"Don't—" It seems as though Oswald registers the pain in his shoulder, clamping his mouth down in a hiss before continuing to beg, "don't kill me, please."

"Apologies in advance," Ed tells him, right before plunging a sedative into his bloodstream. Oswald falls asleep shortly after that, thankfully.

 

The second time Oswald is conscious, Ed tries to make a peace offering with a glass of water. It feels like too little, but he's hesitant to offer the man food, lest it make him sick, and he doesn't have much else for him to drink. Oswald frantically scoots back against the headboard as Ed approaches, and Ed raises one of his hands as a show of surrender while the other offers up the glass.

"You drugged me," Oswald says, accusatory and slowly pulling a pillow out from behind himself to hold it in front of his chest.

"It was for your own benefit," Ed argues, wrinkling his nose to keep his glasses from sliding down, "you have  _extensive_ injuries. It's bad."

"Do I know you?"

"No," he wants to smile, because he knows that's the friendly thing to do, but he's concerned it may come off improperly. "Ed. Nygma. I work at the GCPD."

"But you're not a cop," and Oswald's voice sounds much better without the ahrsh edge to it.

"No, no, no," his denial breaks into laughter, before leveling back out, "no, I'm in forensics. Nothing to worry about."

"Where are my clothes?" Oswald paws at the pajamas he's practically draped in, keenly aware that they are  _not_ what he last remembers being dressed in.

Ed inhales sharply, pressing his lips into a fine line. "I— I threw them away," he admits, "they were gross." Suddenly, Oswald is trying to get out of the bed, and Ed has to put the glass of water down wherever, because Oswald shouldn't be on his feet for another three days, at the least, "No, no. Oh, dear, sir, you can't— you can't leave."

"Sedate me again," it's a threat, terrifying and a little invigorating, "and I swear, I will kill you—"

" _Sir_ ," Ed loves and opportunity to raise his voice, to have someone stop speaking just to hear him, "you can't leave. You're a wanted man. With your condition? I doubt you'll make it down the block." It's childish, almost endearingly so, the way Oswald wraps layers back around himself and returns to the nest of the bed. He's pouting, practically glaring at Ed. "Drink up," Ed tells him, offering the cup up again, "you're likely dehydrated." All it takes is one nudge from Oswald, pushing the class away, and Ed retreats. He takes it to the table, sets it dow on a coaster even though it likely doesn't need one.

"What do you want from me?"

"I wanted to help you," he says, turning around and frowning at Oswald, "you were in bad shape."

"Why would you help me?"

"I— I just said—"

"Look, friend—"

"Ed."

" _Ed_ ," Oswald grits his teeth, then finds the movement to be too exhausting, "people don't  _help_ me. I am a bargaining tool, and an enemy to nearly everyone in this city," his hands open and close, touching the soft flannel of his clothes. "If you're thinking about killing me, could you get on with it? At this point, it would be a welcome relief." 

"Oh, no, no," Ed's face crumbles, now worried and soft as he comes over to sit on the edge of the bed, "no. Heavens, no. I would never— I have no— That's not my intention, here."

"Then what  _is_ your intention?" At some point, maybe, the way Oswald cocks his head and looks down over his nose could be seen as intimidating. Now, with his hair in his eyes, skin just a little too pale, swallowed up by the clothes he's in? It just looks pathetic. 

“I know far less than you seem to believe,” Ed sighs, “I know who you are, Mister Penguin, that much is true. I have no expectations; I saw someone in need, and I wanted to help, so I _did_.” Having to defend his intentions feels wrong, feels false, and Ed hates having to lie, “Maybe, some day, my decision to help you will help me, but I don’t expect it. I knew that no one else would help you, so I did.”

“I’m one of the city’s most notorious killers,” he gets out of bed, limp painfully distinct as he makes it across the room, looking out at the city over the neon sign outside, “I have no friends, and my mother— the one person I swore to protect is dead because of my own weakness.” When Oswald turns around, Ed swears he can see tears in his eyes, “You shouldn’t have saved me.”

God knows what he intended to do, but as Oswald tries to cross the room again, his body crumbles beneath him and he faints. Remarkable how fragile people are.

 

Oswald wakes up to a man at the foot of his bed, tied up with a burlap sack over his head. The tape around him is meticulous, no overlapping edges, all perfectly straight and clean— this must be Ed’s doing. God, he hopes it is.

And there, he emerges from behind the man.

“Ta-da!” Ed clasps his hands beneath his chin, childlike in his excitement. “I brought you something.”

“Who is that?” Oswald hasn’t even bothered to come out from beneath the blankets, looking very cozy.

“ _This_ ,” dramatically, Ed gestures to the man in front of him, “is Mister Leonard. You see, you were talking in your sleep about this man, Galavan, and how he killed your mother. So _I_ thought—“

“I was talking in my sleep?”

“Yes,” he doesn’t like being interrupted, but the strange confusion in Oswald’s eyes quells his annoyance, if just for the moment, “anyway, Mister Leonard worked for Galavan. Before he was arrested.”

“Arrested?” Oswald sits up so quickly that Ed’s arm stings in sympathy. “How?”

Oh, of course. Of course Oswald will want to know that. Ed’s mind aches, already having exerted himself far more than he had expected just to get a hold of Mister Leonard. Seven casualties along the way, and Mister Leonard is not as light as he looks; Ed had to do away with a man on the street, too, who asked too many questions, “Detective Gordon,” Ed starts, speaking slowly and more deliberately, “arrested Galavan for kidnapping Mayor James.” That sounds about right. He sure hopes he got that information from the correct places, “He’s in Blackgate prison.”

“Huh,” Oswald looks like he might be in pain, or maybe it’s something else, “isn’t that something.”

“Oh,” Ed wilts, “I thought you’d be pleased.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Oswald sinks back into the pillows, folds his arms over his chest. “Why is he here?”

“He’s a gift.”

“And what exactly am I supposed to do with a Leonard?”

“Whatever you want, really,” Ed walks around Mister Leonard, advancing on Oswald far too quickly for Oswald’s liking, “I just figured getting some retribution would improve your mood a little.” From his pocket, Ed produces a switchblade knife, popping it open and then offering it to Oswald, “Nearly fifty percent of the healing process is directly related to your mood and perception—“

Oswald gives him a look, and Ed feels as though his jaws have been screwed shut. Alright, then. Oswald takes the knife and limps over to Mister Leonard, considers taking it to the man’s nails, digging them up from the beds, or maybe slitting his throat and letting the blood pour into his open hands. None of it sounds good enough. Nothing he does will soothe the empty place in his heart where his mother belongs; nothing will cover up the memory of her blood on his hands. He lets the knife drop to the floor, looking up at Ed with hollow eyes, “I’m done. I’m not one for this world,” it sounds so ominous, and while Ed knows he’s childproofed the apartment ten times over, it still makes him worry. “I need some rest,” Oswald barely makes it back into the bed, but makes quick work of turning the blankets into a nest once again.

“What to do now?” Ed asks, kicking at Mister Leonard’s bound leg, “He was supposed to like you.”

Very faintly, as Ed starts dragging Mister Leonard away— deciding to leave him in the closet for now, until he either dies in there, or Oswald changes his mind —he hears Oswald humming. It’s fairly tuneless, the notes stilted and fractured by what Ed can only assume are tears; there’s been a lot of those, recently. Ed recognizes the song, though, or so he thinks, and upon putting two and two together, he knows _exactly_ what he wants to do. He just needs to learn how to play piano.

 

Finding the record itself was hard enough. Ed may have immeasurable ability to manipulate the world around him, but he can’t make something appear if he’s never seen it before. Water bottles? Clothes? Food? Weapons? All very _simple_ things. Hell, even cars. A record that has long since been produced, not scratched or broken, sure to have the specific song he needs? Very difficult.

And then, then he had to _buy_ it, because he can’t just walk into a record store and not buy anything. Then he just looks strange.

Piano, for Ed, is a moderately new invention. He knows that it’s been around for so long, but he’s never been given the opportunity to be around one, much less play it. In order to learn, he knocks out a piano instructor and practices in her home for a few hours until he has it right; begs the conceptual assistance of Euterpe and eventually, he’s capable. Took longer than he would have liked, but he manages to have everything set up before dinner time.

The record is full of strange sounds, little background humming and people speaking; a lounge recording, surely. On a smaller speaker, in a larger room, perhaps the sounds would go unnoticed, but in Ed’s tiny loft apartment, it’s almost unnerving. He sings along, finding keys on the piano and pressing down when he realizes Oswald is waking up.

As he hears the springs on his bed sound in protest to the abrupt weight shifting on them, he realizes it’s been a while since he’s sung. Here’s hoping it sounds alright, he’d hate to embarrass himself. Singing and playing piano at the same time serves as more difficult than he had anticipated, leaving Ed frowning as he tries to keep everything up. If only Oswald would _say_ something, then he could—

“Why are you playing that song?”

 _Finally_. “I can bring tears to your eyes and resurrect the dead.” Ed knows that Oswald is crying, so he purposefully keeps his eyes trained a solid two feet to the left of the man, “I form in an instant and last a lifetime. What am I?” And Ed is intent to freeze Oswald to his spot until he answers the riddle, to create a searing pain in his shoulder until the answer finally comes to him, like divine enlightenment. Except, that isn’t happening.

“A memory,” Oswald sniffs, goes to wipe his eyes and finds that his shoulder doesn’t intend to behave, “so what?”

Impressive.

Very fucking impressive.

Faster than Hermes, that’s for sure.

“You were humming this,” Ed informs him, playing another few notes on the piano before turning around to face him fully, “it must be meaningful.”

Oswald sits up, fractionally, sniffing again. Anguish is so unbecoming on him, but sorrow is perfect, Ed thinks. Tears like glass out of eyes like oceans— Calliope could write novels about the way Oswald looks in the face of loss; Ed can only hope to commit the image to memory, because he doesn’t want the circumstances to ever repeat themselves. He’s never felt this way before, never wanted to defend rather than destroy. Oh, dear. “My mother would sing this song to me,” he says, voice now softer than before, “as a child, before bed every night,” if the fact that Ed is coming over to him causes Oswald any discomfort, he makes no show of it, so Ed sits down on the bed’s edge once again. “She would tell me, ‘ _Oswald_ ,” when the words come, so do the tears, and Ed is thankful for his good hearing, because Oswald’s stilted accent does not mix well with the thick sound in his throat, “ _don’t listen to the other children. You are handsome, and clever, and some day you will be a great man.’_ Every time,” Oswald’s voice is near indecipherable now, but Ed continues to listen, “she said that _every_ time. And that’s all I have left now; memories that do nothing but cause me suffering.” Oswald bites down on his bottom lip, sucks in a deep breath of air and uses it like the cork in a bottle of wine, putting a stop to his tears and shuddering breaths— Ed wants to remove it. Ed wants it gone, wants to hear every broken gasp and festering wail.

“Not forever,” Ed tells him, suppressing an instinct to reach out and console, “I— I lost my friends and family long ago, violently ripped from me. Remembering them doesn’t make me sad anymore, not like it used to,” he forces himself to hide the hatred he feels for Dionysus, the heartbreak he feels at Hermes’ abandonment of him, and replace it with confidence, “do you know why?”

“No,” scrunching up his features, Oswald goes to get out of the bed, “and this little visit is over. I’m _leaving_.”

“Mis— Mister Penguin,” Ed meets Oswald at the foot of the bed, presses up to him at the chest because he knows his size works to his advantage, “for men like us, love is a source of strength. You’re trying to remove your mother from your memory because it hurts,” the violence in Oswald’s eyes terrifies him, but he can’t stop now, “but you are not better off unencumbered.”

“My mother was a _saint_ ,” he sees the knife on the tabletop, considers just how worth it it would be to kill Ed just for making him analyze his own feelings, “she was the only person who truly cared about me, and now she’s gone. She’s gone because of my being _blinded_ by my love for her.” The knife feels safer in his hand, feels even more right against Ed’s throat, “You know _nothing_ about what is best for me.”

“Maybe so,” Ed tries, voice strangled by the pressure, “but what flaw is there in trusting me to care? You know I won’t kill you, I’m not a threat. I _truly_ only care about your wellbeing.” It sounds too good, too kind, too much like something Oswald could take advantage of, but he has to _try_. There’s nothing harder than explaining away why a cut throat doesn’t kill him, he doesn’t want it to come to that. “Before me, I see a man in need of assistance, of support in a trying time and I’m offering that to you at no cost. Please; you can’t run away from your loss forever. Let your love for your mother be your driving force in finding revenge, retribution; don’t remove it from the equation.“ Beneath him, Oswald’s eyes are soft, rimmed with more tears than they were before, “Please put the knife down, Mister Penguin, you’re hurting me.”

And Oswald does.

 

Ed orders them takeout, produces a feast by simply saying words in a random succession; he hasn’t had Chinese food since… centuries ago. Lifetimes, in fact. He could care less what it tastes like, because by the time it gets to the door, he and Oswald have burned through a bottle of wine and a few shots of _whatever_ was in the large blue and white bottle in Ed’s liquor cabinet.

Over full stomachs, the two of them sing together, Ed tapping chopsticks on their wine glasses and plates, as if they were instruments themselves. Oswald requests Mister Leonard, eyelashes fluttering, and he doesn’t need to say please twice; Ed is up, stumbling over his feet as if he weren’t a being of indescribable power, dragging the bound man out of the coat closet with some difficulty. Was Mister Leonard always this heavy, or is it the alcohol getting to him?

Drunkenly, Ed watches as Oswald skewers the man’s neck with a wooden chopstick, right through his windpipe and out the other side. He takes the knife to Leonard’s leg, carves over the top round of his thigh, until he decides to plunge the blade in, down to the hilt. When Oswald pulls the blade back out, blood bubbles from the wound like water from a faucet. Ed can’t help but laugh giddily, hands folded up in front of his face because _this_ , this was how it was supposed to go. Oswald, blood on his hands and chest shuddering, unholy heaving, teeth bared and reverent. The green neon sign outside of Ed’s window casts Oswald in an eerie glow, concave like the cursed undead, brought back to life by the sheer spark of passion in the hollow of his chest. There’s a heart there, somewhere, and Ed wants to hold it in his hands.

Ed wants in on all of the perfect little secrets, every little shivering detail of Oswald’s upbringing; his past, present, and future. He wants to look through fate’s eye and watch Oswald begin and cease to exist, all at once, over and over until he knows him better than anyone ever will. The excitement is all too much— Ed bites through his lip and gasps, coughs on the terrible taste of blood in his mouth. (He bets Oswald’s blood wouldn’t taste as bad in his mouth, he thinks it would taste like determination and self-righteousness, like the finest of praises. Like stars in the sky at night in a city in the middle of nowhere, void of light pollution and perfectly clear, all the way up. Divine beings are cast aside, Ed has seen something so much more beautiful, now.)

“Are you alright?” Oswald asks, stopping in the middle of removing one of Leonard’s fingernails; he plants a hand over where the other man’s mouth ought to be, annoyed with how loud he is. “Edward?”

“I— Yes,” blotting his lip, Ed washes the taste of useless blood out of his mouth with a sip of wine, “I’m fine, Mister Penguin.”

“Really,” he says, popping the knife point up, ripping Leonard’s fingernail from the soft, fleshy nail bed, “call me Oswald.”

 

Later, after Ed sends Oswald to take a shower, he wills the blood away and the man’s disembodied pieces into bags. He puts the bags on the fire escape; surely they’ll be gone in the morning. Stains lift out of the hardwoods, little splotches of blood removed from the seat of the chairs, the quilt over the back of the couch, the fabric of Ed’s sweater. It’s so easy, he has to tousle his hair and roll his sleeves up just to make it seem like he’s done something by the time Oswald is clean.

“Feeling better, I hope?” Ed asks, sitting down beside Oswald on the bed, first aid kit wide open. Carefully, he peels wet bandage back and drops it on the floor.

“Much,” Oswald’s voice is barely a sigh, likely exhausted by the violence of his earlier action, “thank you, Ed.”

“Of course,” Ed dries Oswald’s shoulder, careful blotting before sitting back, letting the wound breathe, “I’m glad to see you so bright.”

“Bright?”

“Like the sun,” he informs, coming back in with antiseptic that he applies with a steady stream of cool air, blowing the pain away before it can start, “through the clouds, the sun appears.” The air coming from his mouth is suspiciously cold, but Oswald says nothing.

“How poetic,” and it doesn’t quite sound like a cruel observation.

“Thank you for letting me help you, Oswald.” Ed carefully tapes a gauze pad over Oswald’s wound, gentle hands easing wrappings around the fickle joint. He lift’s Oswald’s arm, wraps the fabric underneath and around his upper arm, then back over his chest, counting the inches before he reaches the end of the roll.

“I owe you all of the thanks, Ed,” Oswald hums, pulling another one of Ed’s pajama shirts over his shoulders and making quick work of the buttons, a chill clear on his skin, “I don’t know where I would be without you.”

“I don’t like to think about uncertainties,” he packs the first aid kit up, shoving it back beneath the bed, “what matters is that you are here, and you’re doing very well.”

“And, I’m very tired,” when Oswald laughs, it sounds like the skies are opening up with something even Ed could not comprehend; something unbelievable and beautiful. Watching him settle into the blankets is the definition of comfort, safe, home.

“I’ll let—“ Oswald reaches out and holds on to Ed’s sweatpants, cutting Ed off in both voice and motion.

“Could you— Would you sing that song again, please?” Even if Ed wanted to say no, wanted to turn down the request and leave Oswald in the darkness of his nest of blankets; he wouldn’t have been able to. Ed has always had a soft spot for people asking politely.

He sits up against the headboard, stretches his legs out and hums to himself, finds a cadence and a tune. It’s still unusual to him, singing for someone and not for personal entertainment— he figures Oswald knows just how disappointing this can be, and that Oswald is the type of man to tell Ed to stop when he’s fed up.

Except, as Ed sings, Oswald curls around the source of sound and subtle vibrations, one hand wound in Ed’s shirt. Oswald drags him down, brings him on level with water’s surface and just like that, Ed is drawn under. He drowns in the feeling of being needed, of being wanted, of warm hands against him. Ed lets Oswald hold onto him, hawkish nose pressed into the softest part of his waist, clutching so tightly that the knuckles on his hand go white. He wants to put his hand over Oswald’s, wants to unwind his tendons and pull them loose; _Where do you think I’m going? What makes you think I can leave?_ He’s hopelessly devoted, like a moth to a flame, like fire rushing through a forest of dry trees. This love is destruction, destruction, destruction, all the way down, and Ed is willing to lie at the bottom of it as a pile of bones.

Ed slides beneath the quilt on his bed, tucking himself closely against Oswald’s cold joints and desperate, clawing hands. He continues to sing, repeating the same three short verses over and over again, until his voice is barely more than a vibration in his chest, and he falls asleep there. Wrapped around Oswald, chin on the top of his head, arm tucked up beneath his neck and bent so that his fingers can fidget with the other man’s hair.

He dreams about settling down, about dancing across a large kitchen, a radio going somewhere offside. Ed dreams about every mortal desire, about the absolute trust and loyalty that he feels when he looks at Oswald, how it feels to think it’s reflected back. His entire life has led up to this moment, to this man, and the way his hand feels on Ed’s chest as he sleeps.

 

That’s the last day of peace that Ed has.

He comes home to an empty apartment after work, finds a note but is too blinded by panic to read it for hours. Even when Oswald comes back, apologetic, holding Ed’s face in his hands as he explains why these two men need to be with him, Ed still can barely hear him. The rush of water is too loud in his ears, fear and ice clogging up the important synapses in his brain. Oswald is safe, he tells himself, but it doesn’t feel like enough.

Oswald disappears with Jim, and the next time Ed sees him is in a jail cell at work. He promises to look after Oswald’s mother’s grave, even if the gesture is completely contrary to his existence. He’s a creature made for suffering, for ending lives and wiping them from history, not for trimming the grass around an old woman’s headstone. Then again, for Oswald, Ed would trim the grass at his feet with every step the other man takes.

And then? Oswald is gone.

Ed knows of the place he’s been taken to, but he doesn’t know enough to get Oswald out. Visiting is out of the question, he can’t raise suspicion, and he’s not entirely sure he’d be able to keep his temper, anyway.

 

“Persephone,” Ed says, laying on salted ground as the goddess weaves a crown of flowers from her basket, “I miss him.”

“You care about him,” she looks up from her weaving, completely unfazed, “that’s common, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t _feel_ common,” pathetically, he throws an arm over his eyes. He looks down, makes sure that the flowers on Oswald’s mother’s grave haven’t started to wilt yet, “I want to help him.”

“Then help him.” Ed sends her a helpless look, confused and frightened and very likely tearful, “Last I remember, you were regarded as having a divine genius, αίνιγμα.” The crown of flowers is placed on Ed’s chest, yellow chrysanthemums, vibrant purple delphinium, and fragrant gardenias. “Explain to me what is stopping you, and—“ before he can speak, she holds up a hand, “no riddles.”

“I know what I am,” he says, carefully turning the crown in his hands, smelling the gardenia, “it’s part of me, in my skin. What I want, what I feel,” Ed drops the crown in favor of pressing his fingers to his eyes, “that is contrary what I _am_.”

“And what are you?”

Ed removes his hands from his eyes, looking up at her with a touch of attitude, “A κακοδαίμων,” it almost sounds like a question, “you know this.”

“You are many things before you are your bones, αίνιγμα. Cerberus is not simply a dog, I am not simply dread queen of the underworld, and Hades is not simply god of the dead,” she gestures for him to sit up, and he does so sourly. Persephone positions the crown of flowers on his head, propping it at an angle so that it doesn’t fall. “At night, I do not lie with the most feared god, I lie with my _husband_. When he brought me here, I was not always queen,” reaching out, she removes one of the flowers in the crown, replacing it with a tulip, “I was a prisoner, then I was queen, and now I am his wife. Do you understand?”

“I—“ Persephone leads him back toward Hades’ desk as he thinks. “I don’t know that I do.”

“We mustn’t actively change ourselves for the men we love,” she says, planting flowers in the desolate ground surrounding the desk, roses, tulips, daises; where she touches the dirt it gains its color back, no longer a miserable blue, “but instead fit ourselves into their gaps, until we are so closely intertwined, they can’t live without us. Perhaps, along the way, we will also change.”

“Oh—“

“You, αίνιγμα, have a visitor,” Persephone gestures downward, at Edward’s empty loft apartment, the doorbell sounding.

 

Ed suspects that he will see Oswald on the other side of his doorway, but nothing will have prepared him for the sight of the other man having been tarred and feathered. Did people even _do_ that anymore?

“What happened to you?” Ed asks, powerful mind brought to a halting stop by the sight in front of him.

“Oh, this—“ Oswald’s voice is not the same, now too light and too forgiving, “this is nothing.” He gestures at the door, still smiling, “I was just in the neighborhood and I— Um. May I come in?” It’s sheepish, and Ed wonders why the man thinks he has to ask at all; he’s left everything exactly where it was, in hopes that maybe Oswald would come fluttering back to the nest. “These feathers aren’t half as warm as they look.”

“Please,” it’s all Ed can do not to pull Oswald in, “by all means. It’s so good to see you.”

“How have you been, old friend?” Under the warmth of Ed’s apartment, it seems like Oswald can follow his train of thought significantly more easily, “Well, I hope.”

“Well, yes. I’ve been busy, so very busy,” he lies, unaware of just how _false_ it sounds. The state of his apartment doesn’t attest to his point, either, unfortunately. “And you? I hear you’ve been released! Actually—“ Ed gestures to Oswald’s jacket, the hat he’s wringing in his hands, that state of himself that he’d previously pushed aside, “What— What happened here?”

“Oh,” Oswald laughs, a nervous, humorless sound, “oh. Good ol’ Butch and Tabitha having a little fun. You know,” he looks down at his jacket, the only piece of warm clothing that he owns; completely ruined, “they talked about killing me. This is pretty nice of them, considering.”

“Pretty _nice_ of them?” Everything Ed is hearing makes him want to vomit, makes him want to purge the contents of his stomach and his mind until this _isn’t_ the most upsetting thing he’s endured, “They really did a number on you in Arkham, didn’t they?”

“I— I wanted to tell you— to _apologize_ to you, for starting you on a path of violence and destruction,” Oswald twists his hat in his hands, fingertips becoming stuck on the tar, “I should never have involved you in my own ways of anger, of murder; it would be my fault entirely if—“

“If I may,” Ed holds up a hand, hesitating before reaching toward the hat, “I only want to help you. That being said, I am my own man, and you don’t need to bear my choices on your shoulders,” the hat is unsalvageable, so Ed decides its best just going in the garbage. “You have nothing to apologize for. Now,” he smiles, bites back the most tangible form of discomfort he’s ever felt, “can I convince you to take a bath?”

“I wouldn’t want to impose, I—“

“Unless you have somewhere else to go?” They both know he doesn’t; his empire is in other men’s hands, and with his newfound philosophy? It’s unlikely he could ever get it back. That’s fine, because Ed will always host him.

“Perhaps,” he says hesitantly, hair stuck to his face with tar, “I’ll take your offer.”

“Great!”

 

The only thing harder than washing tar out of hair is watching a man who was once modern royalty forget where he is. Ed sits on the edge of the bathtub, works clumps of tar out of Oswald’s hair, and decides he’ll have to get the other man a haircut sometime soon. As the water cools and the steam in the bathroom dissipates, Ed realizes that the tar is only getting harder and harder to remove— he considers how distant Oswald is, he considers the likelihood of being caught using his divine strengths. As Ed wills warmth into his hands, he wonders just what consequences there could be for being found out. The threat of consequence feels empty; Ed’s mind has gotten him out of every problem he has ever faced, although, it’s also gotten him into every problem, as well.

Ed is so focused on running through the details of a chicken soup recipe and having it cook itself in the kitchen that he nearly misses the sound of Oswald’s voice.

“It’s like your apartment is alive,” he says, scratching at the skin around his fingernails, “it’s so much better than Arkham.”

“Is that so?” Ed guides Oswald’s head back, rinses cold soap and god knows what else out of his hair, “Then you’ll stay for lunch? I intended to take _flowers_ ,” he pitches his voice up, willing Persephone to have sympathy on his poor heart, “to your mother, this afternoon. You could join me.” In the living room, something clatters to the floor, and Ed knows he’ll have to talk to Persephone about her aim; it’s the thought that counts. He appreciates that.

“I already owe you so much—“

“Nonsense,” he nudges Oswald gently. “You don’t owe me anything.”

And that’s that.

The soup isn’t as good as Ed had wanted it to be, but Oswald claims it’s better than anything they served him in Arkham. That seems like enough.

Ed has to work some magic to make some of his clothes fit Oswald, but the smaller man doesn’t question it at all. Oswald just puts the clothes on, mentions how warm they are appreciatively. It surprises Ed just how much he likes seeing Oswald in his clothes.

 

“Hello, mother,” Oswald greets his mother’s tombstone with a strange familiarity. Ed had expected as much, but hearing someone speak to a grave has always made him just a bit uncomfortable— it seems people find a comfort in it because the other person can’t hear them, and Ed knows that to be untrue. “What a lovely spot,” he says, admiring a tree that overlooks the plot, one that Ed has only just willed into having at least a _little_ greenery. “I’m sorry,” Oswald is crying, as he tends to be in most emotionally trying times, “that I couldn’t be here for the funeral, but I think you’d be proud of me.” The thunder overhead is ominous, and if Ed listens hard enough, he can hear Gertrud expressing that this man _is not_ her boy. “I’m a changed man. Or, at least I’m trying to be,” when Ed senses someone walking around in the graveyard with them, he gets closer to Oswald, intent on defending him, as well as tightening the scarf over his shoulders, “but to be honest, I don’t know if I’ll make it without you.” Ed dislikes this sentiment heavily, but he keeps himself quiet. He touches Oswald’s back gently, a gesture of comfort that is somewhat difficult to botch. “Ed is helping me,” Oswald tells his mother, smiling, “he’s the one who’s been bringing you flowers; I hope you’ve enjoyed his company as much as I do, mother.”

Ed keeps himself from smiling because it would be untoward, but he does straighten up distinctly. The man who has been walking the graveyard, flowers in one hand and umbrella in the other, finally comes up to them and stops two graves short. “Hello?” Oswald makes an attempt to dry his eyes, but it does very little to hide the fact that he’s crying. “I’m terribly sorry,” the man says, voice gentle and immediately trustworthy, “I don’t mean to interrupt.”

“Not at all,” Oswald is kind, and Ed schools his expression to match that sentiment. He points to the man’s bouquet, smiling widely, “You brought lilies.”

“They were her favorite, if memory serves.”

“Yes,” Oswald nods, body wavering with the movement. Ed holds him up, hands on his arms. “Her absolute favorite,” he admires the bouquet as the man sets it down alongside Ed’s bundle of flowers, “did you know her?”

“Once,” he says, sighing heavily, “a long time ago. I found her again only in death, I’m afraid.” Turning to the two young men beside him, the man puts his hand out firmly, first to Ed, “I’m Elijah Van Dahl.”

“Edward Nygma,” he supplies, offering up another complacent smile. It seems possible that Elijah thought that he wouldn’t speak at all, if the surprise on his face is anything to go by.

“Oswald Cobblepot.” It’s unlikely that Oswald’s handshake is very strong, Ed can’t even feel the man’s muscles tense under his hand.

“Cobblepot?” Elijah asks, looking between Oswald and the headstone curiously. “You were related to Gertrud?”

“Yes,” he says proudly, but just as quickly dissolves into tears that can’t be spoken through.

“His mother,” Ed offers kindly, patting at Oswald’s arm in an attempt to help him get himself together, “he’s never told me a bad thing about her.”

“Mother?” The impatient creature inside of Ed wants to snap at Elijah, wants to ask why he feels the need to parrot such a simple term. Then, it hits him. Oh, _dear_. “You’re Gertrud’s son?”

“Yes,” Oswald blinks through his tears, frowning at Elijah subtly. “I’m sorry. How did you know my mother, exactly?”

“You never said,” Ed doesn’t want to get his hopes up for Oswald, but he can’t help himself, sometimes.

“How old are you?”

“Excuse me?” Oswald backs up into Ed, moving back from Elijah, suddenly concerned. He has no need to be, Ed wishes he could explain that.

“He’s thirty-one.”

“Gertrud left—“ Elijah is smiling now, less difficult to read, “she left thirty-one years ago. She— she never told me.”

“Told you what?” Sweet, oblivious Oswald. Ed runs a hand over his back, concerned that he _might_ fall over once Elijah finally says it.

“That I had a son.”

Predictably, Oswald leans heavily on Ed, blinking quickly to ward off new tears. Ed holds him up, continuing to rub his back, and looks up to Elijah with a smile, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m sure the pleasure is all his, but,” he looks at Oswald, watches him struggle with his emotions, “he’s had quite the day.”

“That’s fine,” Elijah says, equally shocked. “Just fine.”

 

Ed doesn’t know how he got roped into coming with Oswald to Elijah’s home. The building is terrifyingly large, ornate and antiqued; it’s as if the style runs in the family. In the deeper confines of the home, an aged lounge record is playing, bouncing off of vaulted ceilings and beautiful chandeliers.

“Gertrud came to work as a cook for my parents,” Elijah explains, after sitting Oswald and Ed down at the table. He pours them wine, amicably overfilling their glasses, “She was young and beautiful, so full of life. Your mother was a vision.” The evening is still young, and it surprises Ed to see that the house is seemingly devoid of a staff, “I was young then, too. A boy, really; a foolish, romantic boy.” As soon as his glass is full, Oswald takes a heavy sip from it. You can take the violence out of Oswald, but you can’t take away his alcoholism, Ed thinks. “When my parents found out, they forbade us from being together,” Elijah offers up some kind of snack sandwiches, which Oswald digs into without any hesitance, “I was the heir to a great fortune, they said, and she was just a cook.” The way Oswald looks up at Elijah, up at his father, as if he were telling Oswald a fairy tale rather than the story of his parents’ untimely meeting; it makes something in Ed’s heart flutter. How sweet. “I threatened to run away with her,” Elijah finally sits down, smiling, “to turn my back on my family name and my inheritance. It was the first and only time I ever stood up to them.” Ed sips at his wine carefully, trying to keep an eye on just how much Oswald is drinking, as well, “They must have known my words were just that; a spoiled child, making idle threats. The next day, Gertrud was gone,” Elijah draws his finger around the rim of his own glass, filled with water instead of wine, looking into the clear liquid as if it might have some kind of answers about his lost love, “My parents told me only that they had come to an arrangement. She would be taken care of, and I must never make an attempt to find her. And to my shame, I didn’t.” Elijah is looking at Oswald, expression alternating between sadness and pride, and Oswald is still staring at him owlishly. Ed doubts that Oswald is digesting everything that’s being said. “I let them separate us,” he says, voice breaking, “I had no idea— she never told me she was pregnant. She didn’t tell me about you, I— If she had, I—“

“She told me that my father had died when I was still a baby,” Oswald interjects, much to both Ed and Elijah’s surprise. It’s unclear what he intends to bring up with this statement, but by the time Elijah speaks again, his voice is level.

“Easier than the truth, I suppose,” Elijah sips his wine, looking offside to the shelves of books and plates around them. “That your father was a coward who wouldn’t stand up to his parents. She must have figured the two of you would be better off making your own way. Which, in fact, is probably the truth.” Ed can see Oswald struggling with words, likely trying to find the most simple way to explain that he and his mother had never been alright on their own. Things had been awfully difficult, even painfully so. That meals had gone uneaten, that birthdays had gone uncelebrated, and that his mother’s mind had deteriorated under the stress of it all— a vibrant woman turned shades of gray, a woman tortured by her lost past and her isolation in a country that never quite felt like home. Ed puts a hand over Oswald’s, pats it twice in quick succession, shaking his head minutely. It’s neither the time nor the place. Elijah doesn’t have to know. “Look at you,” Elijah says proudly, coming back around the table to Oswald, “a strong young man.” At a subtle touch and lift to his arm, Oswald stands up with some difficulty. “She did a good job, didn’t she?”

“She tried,” Oswald offers, smiling.

“We both miss her terribly,” and when Oswald nods, Elijah’s expression wrinkles with sympathy. “My poor boy,” he reaches out, hugging Oswald, “you’ve been alone in the world.”

At the intimate gesture, Ed takes his wine glass and looks the other way. This is none of his business, and he once again questions how he ended up here at all. He sucks wine down, coming short of chugging the drink, thinking that if he gets out of this building? Tonight would be a good night to get blackout drunk.

“I was,” Oswald says, pulling back, “for a short time. I was alone, but I owe Ed my life,” at the mention of his name, Ed nearly chokes on the wine in his throat. He puts the glass down, clears his throat. “Ed saved my life, kept me alive after losing my mother. I was alone, but not for long, thanks to him.”

Instead of following his first, terrible instinct, which is to _salute_ Oswald’s father, for some reason, Ed smiles widely, “Really,” he says, “it was my pleasure.”

“Well,” Elijah says warmly, looking between Oswald and Ed, “you have a father, now. A home that is always welcome to you. And a family.” When his eyes meet Ed’s again, he adds, “You, too. Any friend of Oswald’s is a friend of the family. You saved his life, and for that, you are always welcome in this house.”

“A family?” Oswald asks earnestly.

“A big, happy family,” Elijah looks so happy, so warm and bright, “and they’re going to be so happy to meet you both.”

 

In the days that pass, Oswald chooses to stay with Ed in his tiny little apartment, instead of in whatever extravagant room his father has available for him at the manor. “I feel safer here,” he says, helping to fold the clothes that Ed has brought up from the washing machines, “is that alright?”

“Of course it is,” Ed tells him, casually patting his shoulder, “I’m more than happy to have you here. I prefer it,” he laughs, picking up a shirt from the basket of clothes, folding it quickly, “I can keep an eye on you, make sure nobody tars and feathers you again.”

And Oswald laughs, apparently more than happy to share a bed with Ed at the end of a long day. Rarely ever do they sleep quite like they did that last night, before Ed lost Oswald, but Ed is always there in the middle of the night when Oswald needs him, always there to ward off bad memories or nightmares, or even the odd migraine that hits him. Ed is there, and he will continue to be.

Oswald tells Ed, one night, about his siblings that he’s met. “Charles is so polite,” he says, washing dishes while Ed dries them, “and rather young. He’s very kind to me. Sasha is older, I have trouble reading her. She tends to kiss me, which is strange, but—“ shrugging, Oswald hands a plate to Ed, “Grace does the same, so I suppose it isn’t that strange.”

“That’s nice,” Ed offers, considering just how much _he_ would like to kiss Oswald, “they must be those new money types, they’re very comfortable with affection.”

“Were your parents like that, Edward?” It’s such an innocent question, and Oswald doesn’t even realize he’s frozen Ed until he tries to pass another dish to him. “Ed?”

“I lost my parents long ago. So long ago that I barely remember them,” he says, slowly, “but they were never as kind as your father, or as kind as you say your mother was.”

“Oh, Ed, I—“

“I’m very thankful that your father is so kind to me,” Ed covers with a smile, drying the first plate and then taking the next. They don’t talk about it again.

 

Elijah invites Ed to come with Oswald to dinner at the manor, and because, despite being an ancient being of mischief and violence, he doesn’t know how to say no, he goes. Ed gets dressed up in one of his nicer suits, and helps Oswald tie his bowtie before they leave.

“It’s true, I swear it,” Charles says, pointing with his fork. “Clear as day; a ghost. She was this pale, old woman in a long, black dress.” Gesturing between himself and Ed, sitting across the table from him, Charles is careful not to reach too closely into the firelight. “She was as close as we are now.”

In the seat next to him, at the head of the table, Oswald looks on with bright eyes, “What did you do?”

“I ran away screaming, of course!” Everyone laughs, although Ed isn’t quite sure what’s so funny about it.

“Oh, Edward,” Grace says, turning to the man at her left, “do you believe in ghosts?”

“Yes, but, Oswald,” smiling congenially, Ed passes the conversation away from himself, “he’s a _very_ strong believer.”

“I am. I’ve seen them myself.”

“This house has several of them,” Elijah says, likely unaware of just how eerie his tone of voice is, “but don’t worry. They’re all quite friendly.”

“Don’t listen to him,” his wife says, “there are no ghosts here.”

“Oh, there’s ghosts, alright,” Elijah ignores the fact that Grace has fed her dog something beneath the table, looking more directly at Ed and Oswald both, “this house was built by my grandfather. He died here. His wife and two sisters also died upstairs. And my poor, dear parents.” He changes his expression, brings the light back into his eyes, “Yes, many ghosts.”

“If— If I may,” Ed starts, holding his wine glass half between the table and his mouth, “how did you two meet, Mrs. Van Dahl?”

“Oh, yes, please,” Oswald practically bounces in his seat, just the slightest. Ever the romantic, he is.

“It’s a boring story, really,” Grace says, intent on steamrolling through the entire thing.

“Oh, let me tell it,” and Elijah’s tone doesn’t quite make it sound like it’s up for debate. He’s too excited. “After my mother died, I stayed in this house for months. Finally, I went to a diner not far from here. I’d go every day, order the same thing.”

“Chicken soup and a seltzer,” his wife supplies, though holding much less magic in her voice.

“Grace was my waitress, and I grew very fond of her. She told me of her two poor children, Charles and Sasha,” he gestures to them, and Charles feels the need to do a small wave, “and how they suffered at the hands of their abusive father. I had to help. I offered her refuge and she accepted. And this house heard laughter once again.” Elijah warmly reaches out for Grace’s hand, giving it a small squeeze before returning to the napkin in his lap, “One thing led to another, love blossomed, and here we are.”

“That’s very sweet,” Oswald says, looking on fondly.

“But you are my only blood relative, Oswald,” and while Elijah sounds happy about this, there seems to be a tense expression shared between Grace and her children. Ed figures he’s the only one that sees it, because suddenly Sasha has broken a glass and Ed is the _only_ one left unsurprised. How strange.

 

When Elijah pulls Oswald away, Ed lingers at the doorway to the parlor they’ve sat in. At first, it’s because he’s waiting for direction, but it slowly turns into eavesdropping, as it often does, with him.

“All this time,” Elijah says, “I’ve been afraid to ask about your mother. I’m so sorry I abandoned her. Had I known I was abandoning you, too, I— I’m such a cowardly fool.” Over Elijah’s voice, Ed is certain that he hears the telltale sound of high heels, and there, on the other side of the room, he sees Grace. She fiddles with a tin, a bottle, a glass, and listens in as well, “Did she have a happy life?”

“No,” Ed finds himself surprised by Oswald’s apparent honesty, “not a happy life. But a good one. She never hurt a soul. I was not always a good son, but she never spoke a word of reproach.”

“You? Not always a good son? I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe me,” Oswald’s voice is thick and painfully sad, “I’ve done bad things.”

As Grace enters the parlor, Ed seethes with the knowledge that she’s _clearly_ taken to heart Oswald’s admittance. She wants something, and Ed wishes he knew what. She gives Elijah a pill that Ed thinks is suspiciously small, especially when he hears that the medication is for the man’s heart. When Grace leaves the room, Ed is unsurprised to see her putting mints into Elijah’s pill bottle, and he wills her to drop it. And right before the glass hits the floor, Ed wills it to stop just short, hitting the ground softly.

“Oh,” Ed comes upon her, picks the bottle up for her and places it into her hands, “you’re due for a refill, hm?”

“Yes,” Grace says, frowning as she holds the mints close to her chest, “thank you.”

 

“I told father about my past,” Oswald says one night, laying in bed, staring blindly at the ceiling as Ed reads through a case file next to him, “I told him everything.”

“Did you really?” Ed is interested, he really, really is, but this case file has his attention well held. If only they had had forensic sciences when he was first alive.

“He told me,” he chokes up, earning a worried glance away from Ed’s paperwork, “that our lives started the day he met me at the cemetery. That he forgives all of my wrongs.”

“And you believe him? You trust him?”

“Entirely.”

“That’s good,” he eventually puts the file away, stretching his legs out and laying down next to Oswald, “hopefully Grace and her children will be as receptive.”

“Hopefully, yes,” and Oswald doesn’t stir too much that night.

 

Not long after, Grace intrudes on Oswald and Elijah playing a card game in the living room, and Ed sits across from them, book in hand. He’s taken to reading from the Van Dahl’s library whenever he’s brought around with Oswald, and he really has started to make a dent in it. And while Ed can read through a game of Gin between Oswald and his father, he can’t read through Grace’s constant chatter.

“Elijah,” she comes in flanked by her children, newspaper in hand, “brace yourself. I’m afraid we have some bad news.”

“Oh, dear,” Elijah says, and Ed smiles because at least _someone_ else in the world shares his favorite phrase of discontent.

“Charles was at the public library today—“

“Research for the novel I’m writing.” Desperately, Ed tries to cover his scoff at the statement, earning him the smallest smile from Oswald. “I was reading some old newspapers and I made an alarming discovery,” Charles says, gesturing to his mother.

“My dear,” Grace again, well-painted nails tapping on the newspaper in her hand, “Oswald is not the nice, young man he says he is. If we didn’t lead such sheltered lives here, we would know what the whole world knows,” she pauses for effect, “that he’s a notorious criminal. We’ve been sheltering a killer.” Grace opens up the newspaper in her hand, bearing a front-page spread of Oswald’s face, headline; PENGUIN BUSTED. “We could have all been raped and murdered in our beds.”

“Raped, and murdered,” Sasha echoes as her mother hands Elijah the newspaper.

Oswald looks like he might vomit, if it makes it past all the tears in his eyes. Of course, Ed wants to reach across the room, wants to take Oswald into his arms and defend him from every word this woman has to say, but he knows better. He works from afar, watching closely.

“They call you the Penguin?” Elijah asks.

“To be fair,” Ed says, somewhat casually, when he’s the only one in the room still sitting down, “he never raped anybody.”

“Oh, well that’s a mercy, now isn’t it?” Grace spares no good manners for her guests, family or otherwise, it seems.

“My son told me about his past,” Elijah puts his hand on Oswald’s shoulder, level headed as always, “he just didn’t tell me how famous he was. You’re far too modest, son.”

“ _Elijah,_ ” his wife is furious, having passed over the confusion that her children share, “a violent criminal, in our house!”

“Grace, relax. He’s changed. Redeemed,” he turns to Oswald, smiling. “You’re not this man anymore, are you?”

“No, no,” Oswald turns to shake his head at Grace, as well.

“He really isn’t that man anymore,” Ed adds.

“But how do you know he’s not?”

“I’ve looked into his soul,” such vindication is something Ed figures must run in the family, because he’s heard Oswald take the same tone, “I’ve seen his beautiful heart.” And as Grace and her children walk away, Elijah takes to complimenting Oswald’s suit in the photograph, reading through the article in the same way a parent would their child’s first report card.

That night, Ed and Oswald stay up far too late drinking and listening to Elijah’s stories, and the man insists that they stay at the manor. He sets up a room for each of them, informs them of when he takes breakfast and when Grace takes breakfast, two hours later, and even leaves the finest pajamas on the beds for them both.

Naturally, Ed is an early riser. He tends to not sleep at all, always too interested in whatever has taken his interest, but when he’s in somewhere he isn’t allowed to snoop in? It seems safest to sleep. Taking breakfast with Elijah in his pajamas sounds rude, so he puts on his pants, his shirt and vest, and foregoes the jacket. That seems nice enough. Elijah sends him to wake Oswald, to inform the man he’s had waffles made, and when Ed does so, he hears two sets of voices in Oswald’s bedroom.

“Whatever you have planned for the old man, I want in.” It’s a woman’s voice, definitely not Grace’s.

“In?” Oswald sounds barely awake, voice uneven and soft.

“We could do great things, you and me.”

“I suppose, I—“

“If you and me work together, we could have it all. We could squeeze my mom and brother out.”

“Why would we do that?”

“I don’t know,” and Ed hears the sound of bedsheets rustling, “I guess we’re just a couple of crazy, mixed up kids.”

“Good heavens!” Something falls to the ground in the room, and Ed figures now is as good a time as any to barge in, knocking loudly as he hears, “I’m practically your brother.”

“Oswald?” Somehow, whatever Ed was hearing doesn’t compare to the scene in front of him. Oswald has pressed himself as close as possible to the far wall, expression scrunched up in confusion and subtle outrage. Sasha, dressed in barely anything and a pair of heels, is still on Oswald’s bed. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Ed, thank goodness,” he limps over to Ed, far too quickly for his leg at this time of morning, lurching into the other man’s chest. “Sasha was just leaving,” and to her credit, she follows the cue.

With the door closed behind her, Oswald seems to melt. Ed holds him up, guides him back to the bed where he has him sit down carefully, “What happened, exactly?”

“I— She thinks I’m trying to get money from my father,” he says, crestfallen, “I think she tried to seduce me?” There’s something very endearing about the equally mortified and confused expression on Oswald’s face.

“She is very pretty,” Ed remarks, shrugging apathetically.

“I suppose so,” Oswald lacks interest just as much, still clinging to the sleeves of Ed’s shirt. “I just— I can’t believe she would do such a thing.”

“Why don’t you come down to breakfast with me,” he offers, gently removing Oswald’s hands from his sleeves so that he can hold them, “and if you want to tell your father about it, you can.”

“Right,” Oswald smiles, standing up from the bed and making his way to the wardrobe. “I don’t know where I’d be without you, Ed. Thank you.”

 

A week later, while working with Oswald on a suit, Elijah collapses. Oswald is inconsolable, as to be expected, and once a doctor has been called, he calls Ed. He calls Ed up and is a weeping, sobbing mess, and even though he doesn’t quite know what’s wrong, Ed comes rushing up to the estate.

As Graces sits at Elijah’s beside, Ed stands next to Oswald, hand on his shoulder, as he listens to the doctor explain everything to him. When the doctor says that Elijah ought to get his affairs in order, that he may not be long for this world, Ed is surprised to see Oswald trying to hold a strong face. Perhaps he’s cried himself out.

“Come here, Oswald,” Elijah says, and while Oswald goes over, Ed hangs back, closer to the doorway. “Don’t listen to doctors, son. I’ve proved them wrong so many times I’ve lost count. You and I will have many more years to spend together.” As Grace crosses the room, Elijah speaks up, “Perhaps we should call my lawyer, though, dear. I have some things I’d like to go over with him.”

“I’ll have him stop by,” and if Grace thinks nobody notices the sour expression on her face as she leaves the room, Ed is thankful that he’s so invisible to her.

That invisibility comes as a benefit, and Ed realizes that maybe, just maybe, he can remove one more source of misery from Oswald’s life. He has it so that every pill that enters Elijah’s bottles are exactly what they’re supposed to be, nothing more or less. He makes it so that every dosage is exactly how it should be, even when Grace tampers with pill sizes or misses something on a schedule. Ed wills it all into existence with no more than a twitch of his fingers, and there it is. It’s a little more difficult than rendering some motionless, or manifesting snakes in a home, but it works. With Elijah’s state, though, Ed is unsure how much help he can offer.

“I’ve had Charles pack your bag, Mr. Nygma,” Grace says, effectively sneaking up behind him as he curiously looks at bottles in the kitchen. Things just don’t seem right.

“I wasn’t aware Oswald and I were leaving. I had figured he would be staying until the lawyer came,” in no way does Ed make it seem like he wasn’t snooping. He figures that even if Grace were to complain, Oswald’s blessing would be enough to keep him in good graces with Elijah.

“I’m sure you’ll be leaving tomorrow,” she says, smiling, “I just have a feeling.”

“Grace,” Ed turns on his heel, smiling at her congenially, “can I interest you in a riddle? I’ve got one I’ve just been itching to tell, but Oswald is no good at them.”

“Fine.”

“You come upon two doors. You must go through one, you cannot turn around. One leads to a castle, the other leads to certain death. Each door is guarded by a knight, one of which _always_ lies, and one of which _always_ tells the truth. You do not know which is which. You can ask one question, to only one knight, to figure out which door you should go through. What do you ask?” Ed has already fixed her feet to the floor, the stillness slowly creeping up her legs and into her hips and torso. He waits, patiently, until she starts to notice the lack of mobility in her lower limbs, panicking. “Do you give up?”

“What have you _done_?” She goes to reach out, to take a swipe at him, but her arms are already frozen, too. “I swear, when I’m free, I’ll—“

“You see, you can ask either knight what the _other_ will say. The liar will tell you to take the unsafe door, because the one telling the truth wouldn’t. The truthful one would tell you the liar would tell you the unsafe door, as well,” his smile is unpleasant, almost inhuman as it spreads across his face, “it’s very simple. Now, I have a question of truth or lies for you.”

“What do you want?” Despite her unfavorable position, Grace is still rude as can be.

“I want to know what you’ve done,” Ed says, looming over her. “You can tell me the truth, and I’ll let you go, or you can decide not to tell me, and you’ll die, right here,” the smile is back, all teeth, “your choice!”

Grace struggles, and perhaps it’s the moment where she stops being able to pull air into her lungs that finally makes her give in— “The brandy. It’s poisoned. Elijah doesn’t drink.”

“A deal’s a deal,” Ed lets her go, rushing toward the drawing room, where Elijah is showing Oswald photographs of his departed relatives. It doesn’t matter how fast he goes, how quickly Ed has come to Oswald’s intended aid, freezing absolutely everything in the room as soon as he’s entered it. Behind him, as Sasha and Charles attempt to follow him, their mother close behind, he throws the doors closed without ever having to touch them. It’s too late, of course. The brandy is already in Elijah’s mouth, already down his throat as the glass drops from his hand.

It’s hard to watch, a beloved man dying in the hands of his son, the same son who lost his mother quite the same way not too long ago. It isn’t fair, and Ed knows that, and he wishes there were something more he could do. And suddenly, there’s a terrible pain in Ed’s chest, like a pen being dragged through his skin, and he realizes that he isn’t where he once was.

 

The Van Dahl estate is gone, and Ed is sitting amongst clouds once again, still dressed in the same suit he’d put on the day before.

Clouds.

It’s been so long since it’s been clouds.

“What have you _done_?” Hermes. It’s Hermes. “First you get cast out, and then you go and work for Hades.”

“κακοδαίμων,” Calliope echoes, looking down at him. He feels sick.

“Then, you somehow convince yourself you can change,” Hermes cocks his hip, plants his hand down on it angrily, “and you’re in _love_ , but you’re back here.”

“ἀγαθοδαίμων,” Calliope says, and Ed figures that’s what he felt getting carved into his chest.

“I’ll ask you again, αίνιγμα. What have you done?”

If Ed looks down, if he focuses well, he can see Oswald sitting on the floor of the Van Dahl estate, his father’s body in his hands. The doors to the sitting room are still locked, still thrown shut from Ed’s gesture, and the glass pieces are cutting into Oswald’s knees. Ed wishes he were there.

“I tried to save the man I love from suffering,” Ed says, running a hand through his hair, “and I failed. Why am I here?”

“You’ve _elevated_ yourself,” Thalia says.

“A real class act,” Artemis looks on, unimpressed.

“Put me back,” he pleads, sitting up but not daring to stand, “please, put me back. Can’t you see I’m _needed_?”

“We can’t just put you back, it’s not that easy!” Hermes is practically petulant, both hands on his hips now. “There are _consequences,_ you—” 

“Sure you can,” Ananke comes from beyond the clouds, “that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

“You planned this?”

“I plan everything,” Ananke says tiredly, “that’s my job. I planned you, Hermes, and all of your siblings.”

“We can just send him back?” Calliope reaches out to touch Ed, to run a hand over his jaw. “Just like that?”

“If I planned for you to. Which I did.”

“Ananke, are you sure that—“

“Yes, Hermes,” she holds her hand over Ed’s forehead, smiles down at him. “He’s earned another chance. I can convince the fates to let him have it.” Something within Ed feels heavy, suddenly, and the pain in his chest is worsened, “Unfortunately, we can’t change the skin you’re in. You’ll have to live with it.” Ananke goes to push him, to send him back out and into the Van Dahl sitting room, “But your beloved will recognize it, and isn’t that what matters?”

 

That night, in bed, Oswald tucks his head under Ed’s chin boldly. “You saved me,” Oswald says, no longer sporting the same lofty voice as he had been previously, “from both Grace and myself.”

“You didn’t need saving, Oswald,” Ed wraps his arm around Oswald’s shoulders, rubbing gently.

“How old are you, really?” Oswald asks, grasping the details of the situation surprisingly well. As it stands, it will be their little secret.

“Very,” Ed can’t help but be vague, because doing the math in his head just seems too difficult, “painfully old. Being nearly thirty is much better.”

“Are you an angel? It sounds cliche,” with a shrug, Oswald settles in against Ed’s chest a bit more, “but it’s a fair question, I think.”

“I’m not anything, now,” he admits, laughing, “just plain, dumb Ed.”

“And you’ll stay here?” Oswald asks, putting his hand over the now bandaged words on Ed’s chest, “You won’t disappear again?”

“Of course I’m staying,” Ed turns his head, nose coming into contact with Oswald’s hair, “I have to make sure nobody tars and feathers you, again.”

“How on _earth_ did I end up with you?”

“Well,” Ed is already falling asleep, overcome with tiredness after a lengthy day, “do you believe in fate?”

**Author's Note:**

> the prompt for this was initially: _"I’m a new demon, and I’m assigned to you. But, you’re really depressed, so instead of making your life worse I’ve made it better. So, now I’m slowly redeeming myself and becoming your guardian angel. Oops."_ but i got very carried away with an idea about ed and hermes and calliope and here we are. 
> 
> this is probably one of the strangest things i've written, and because of that i don't know how i feel about it. but i'm glad it's finished, i'm glad to have seen something like this through to the end. that's always fun. 
> 
> thank you for taking this ride with me. 
> 
> talk to me on tumblr! i'm [ mayor-crumblepot ](https://mayor-crumblepot.tumblr.com)


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